Israel-Hamas conflict: 74% of the most widely shared false assertions on X are made by verified individuals

According to a recent research, verified individuals with Blue badges are responsible for the great bulk of false material concerning the Israel-Hamas conflict on X (previously Twitter).

US-based for-profit news organization NewsGuard examined the 250 most popular postings (likes, reposts, comments, and bookmarks) during the first week of the battle (October 7–14), which endorsed one of 10 well-known misleading or unsupported war narratives.

The findings showed that 186 of these 250 postings, or 74%, were made by accounts that X had authenticated.

According to the investigation, “nearly three-fourths of the most popular posts on X spreading false information about the Israel-Hamas war are being pushed by’verified’ X accounts.”

In only one week, postings that promoted these falsehoods garnered 1,349,979 interactions and had more than 100 million views worldwide.

Musk often highlights the growth of X’s “Community Notes” feature, a crowdsourced fact-checking tool, in response to accusations that his radical reforms have increased the amount of false material on the site.

But according to NewsGuard, the platform only tagged 79 of the 250 postings spreading false information about the battle with a Community Note.

According to the research, “that means a note appeared about 32% of the time on some of the platform’s most prominent and harmful misinformation posts.”

The researchers also discovered stories about the battle that were untrue or unsupported that were widely disseminating on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Telegram, and other platforms.

But NewsGuard opted to concentrate on X since it seems to be the only platform that has made its reduced moderating efforts public.

It also discovered that the majority of the false stories on the Israel-Hamas conflict to date seem to first gain popularity on X before spreading to other websites like TikTok and Instagram.

X’s press staff responded automatically to NewsGuard’s emails asking about the results and the platform’s review of X Premium accounts with the message “Busy now, please check back later.”

24 of the 25 most popular posts supporting the idea that Ukraine provided weapons to Hamas, which was the falsehood that the research found with the greatest amount of sharing, came from X Premium accounts.

The second most popular lie, that a CNN crew was attacked on-screen, was promoted by around 23 of the 25 accounts that were uploaded by accounts with the blue checkmark next to X.

“NewsGuard found seven accounts that have disseminated at least two of the most popular war-related lies. All were confirmed by X, it continued.

Users were verified based on “authenticity, notability, and activity” prior to Musk’s purchase of X (then Twitter), which the site now refers to as “Legacy” verification.

Now, a user does not have to be “notable” in order to get the certifying “blue check.”

A user just has to pay a $8 charge, verify a phone number, and post a profile picture to X in order to become verified. X does not specify that the photograph must be of the account holder or another actual person.

X withholds all information on how it evaluates requests for blue checks, including whether it does so. Additionally, it is not necessary to provide your actual name while creating an account.